1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a guidance message display control system, more particularly, it relates to a method for controlling a display timing of a guidance message displayed on a terminal equipment (hereinafter referred to as the terminal) used as a multi-media communication terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multi-media communication system, for example, an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and a LAN (Local Area Network), is a high grade communication services network constituted by computers, optical fiber cables and digital signals, together with a communication satellite. In this system, many terminals are provided for transferring various information necessary for inter-communication among subscribers, and such a terminal has many functions, for example, telephone, facsimile, telex, and the like. These functions are displayed on the display device of the terminal together with guidance messages.
The guidance messages usually denote procedures for operating the keyboard of the terminal, and the user operates the keyboard step by step in accordance with the displayed guidance messages. In this case, it is important that high grade functions, for example, high speed and huge data communication functions be provided in the multi-media communication system. Therefore, recently intensive research has been carried out into the development of a "man-machine interface". The man-machine interface is intended to provide any number of functions between a human (user) and a machine (terminal). One of the problems of the man-machine interface is the user's skill level when using the terminal, since each user's skill level is different in accordance with the user's experience. Therefore, the display timing of the guidance messages must be geared to the user's skill level.
Terminals having control functions operating in accordance with the user's skill level have been disclosed, in, for example, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 60-263256, and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 60-95625 and No. 60-186922.
The first reference (No. 60-263256) discloses a computer system having control functions operating in accordance with the user's skill level. In this system, before operating the computer system, the user inputs a message denoting the skill level of the user and the performs the necessary steps in accordance with the guidance displayed on the display device. Although this system is based on the frequency of use of the computer by the user, often this frequency of use does not reflect the actual skill level of the user. This is because the change of skill level at each step is not input for evaluation. The second reference (No. 60-95625) also discloses a computer system having control functions operating in accordance with the user's skill level. This system is based on data of previous use by the user, and the display speed of the guidance message is based on this data. The third reference (No. 60-186922) discloses a method for outputting the guidance message. This method is based on the time elapsing between key-in operations by the user. In this method, the grade of the content of the guidance is changed in accordance with the change of the elapsed time, but the same problems as that of the first reference still arise in this system.